I bought an Acer PC in 2004, it’s been reformatted a half a dozen times since, still going strong. I bought an Acer laptop and a new Acer PC last year and have no real complaints except I occasionally get a mild electric shock when I plug things into the PC (anybody know how I can sort that out?) and I hate the Vista software.
What are your “plugging into the PC”? This is a tower/desktop right? If you get the shock from touching the case then you are probably missing your ground connection.